Reinvigorating Group Play

[Jane Turner]

Expand on that, how would it work etc. Or more accurately, how would you like it to work?

So an example in frontier system where expansion/exploitation isn't really a goer - the outcome of a successful PP cycle instead of controlling an existing system in inhabited space, is an opportunity to start a CG to occupy a previously uninhabited system

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

One more thing regarding the BGS:

The box is too black. So we have standard of living, wealth, development level in a station / system / minor faction. Why dont we see it? This makes no sense. If we know it, we can play it. If we dont know it, it is some mysterious thing happening.
Same goes for production values. I heard a rumor that you can influence production values by delivering certain goods. We tested this and couldnt confirm it.

Give us a garden we can grow and foster.
Let us change station types, build stations, change the economy, fine tune production, expand and colonize. Give us sand. I am not saying make it easy. But make it visible!
Show us cooldowns so we dont dump 10s of hours into a goal impossible to reach.
Show us techlevel, production values.

Let us play with the sand. Dont give us a bucket to play with, and then let us figure out its a hollow cylinder. Thats not playing, its bullsitting.

I agree, system feedback can be pretty much it's own reward. I can role-play stuff and come up with stories, but when I cannot see that actions have sensible effects I go back to the CZ. The current community goal mission give some decent progress feedback, but we have a whole background sim to play with. It's just kind of hard to figure out if your action do anything at all.

 

[Sixteen-String Jack]

Multiplayer should improve Elite not restrict it. Groups and open play would profit if the galaxy was generally more dangerous. Merchants and travellers used to band together for security.
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All the missions are single stage, as has been mentioned if there was a proportion of quest missions aimed at groups it would help. The quest missions, when accomplished, could lead into local community goals.
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Elite also lacks unique titles and honours which could enhance open play. As an example, how about the 'Presence of Nemesis?'
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The killer of the current 'Presence of Nemesis' is awarded the title. Nemesis must always exist in open play, if the player with the title goes into a no-fire zone, docks, offlines or otherwise exits open play, an AI Nemesis spawns. If the AI Nemesis is killed the killer becomes Nemesis, otherwise the current Nemesis may resume upon return. If Nemesis invites a player to a wing that player is the new Nemesis. There are no effects associated with holding the title, other than it being shown on-screen.
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All it would cost it some code tracking Nemesis and enough screen space to state 'Presence of Nemesis.' Helen of Troy was just a good-looking girl, yet she managed to start an epic scrap?

 

[Moriarte]

As Flin says - we lack a working economy. A basis upon which stories of groups and individuals may materialise. The simple go to A --> activate community goal --> get into 5% bracket is nice once or twice, and, presumably is going to be the Thing for Xbox, but... we, PC gamers, would need a little more. I won't go into detail any further, as FD knows perfectly well what is missing and is deliberately restricting access to BGS & the rest of economy from day 1, as seen from the fact of cool downs and general simplicity of visible information. FD doesn't want us to affect it. Change that "philosophy", if you care.

 

[Walt Kerman]

Automatically triggered Local CG's is definitely something I would find interesting, but I don't think Frontier is near to doing this yet.

Definitely a good idea though and I've added Flins suggestion to the OP.

 

[IronGremlin]

Something small that would go a long way would be to add smaller, more clearly defined "regions" of space.

Not as in, add content, but like lable regions of human occupied space 3 dimmensionally on the galmap, similar to how powerplay controll is visualized.

This would provide structure around which groups could organize play, and help provide a sense of space and scale to Galnet news.

 

[Walt Kerman]

So when you are reading the Galnet news article and it says the Kumo Crew are roving through the Pegasi sector, you can click something to see the Pegasi sector as a whole as well as certain metrics like, population, major faction percentage, and economy by percentage etc.

That would be cool.